Many forms of container are used to house and transport dry flyable materials. Containers of the type which comprise a pallet or base to which is mounted four interlocked sides. Whilst this the invention has been devised with the above form of container particularly in mind it is not limited to such containers.
When containers have to be emptied the methods adopted depend to a large extent on the contents of the container. In the case of flowable material, such as granules, gravitational discharge would be possible. To facilitate this the container could have a bottom discharge port, however attempts to develop a suitable container have been less than totally successful.
An alternative is to tilt the container to an extent required to cause the contents to flow from the container. If uncontrolled discharge is not to occur the flow rate of the material has to be continually monitored and the tilt of the container adjusted to maintain a required discharge rate. This discharge method is labor and/or time intensive and is therefore not favored.
Another discharge method would be to mount a hood with a discharge opening fitted with a flow controlling device to the open top of the container and then support the container in an inverted condition. The challenge with this method is how to invert the container and support it in the inverted manner in the most efficient and economical manner. The present invention addresses this problem.